


curtains for a home

by jamesiee



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Day 5: Future, F/F, Ghosts, OMGCPWomenWeek, Sad Ending, What-If, Woman of Check Please!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 06:56:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12163773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamesiee/pseuds/jamesiee
Summary: It’s usually during the summer, when the Haus is quiet without all the boys there making messes and noise and a home, that Mandy ends up thinking about it. She tries not to, really she tries—it’s depressing enough to regularly lose time because you’ve suddenly run out of ghost mojo or whatever and you have to disappear for a while—but there’s something about the kitchen and it’s curtains that makes her wonder if she would’ve chosen the same ugly pattern had she ever gotten the chance to.She probably would’ve; Jenny loves them.If Mandy lets herself, she can easily imagine what else she would’ve done had she had the chance.Unsurprisingly, death got in the way of a full life.





	curtains for a home

**Author's Note:**

> Pairing: Jenny/Mandy
> 
> I went back and forth about tagging for Major Character death, because we know they're dead the whole time, but it's about what could of been had they not died? I dunno. 
> 
> Also LOL what are tenses? Big, huuuuuuge thanks to @apprenticedmagican ([ao3](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ApprenticedMagician/pseuds/ApprenticedMagician) / [tumblr](http://www.apprenticedmagician.tumblr.com)) for putting up with my moaning about the hypothetical tense and then reading through to make sure i hit my mark. ilu <3
> 
> For Day Six of [OMGCheckPlease Women Week](https://omgcpwomen.tumblr.com/post/164669990232/omgcheckplease-women-week-september-17-23-2017): Future

_I wanna live with you_  
_Even when we're ghosts_  
_'Cause you were always there for me when I needed you most_ _I'm gonna love you till_  
_My lungs give out  
__I promise till death we part like in our vows_

-Say You Won't Let Go, James Arthur

* * *

 

It’s usually during the summer, when the Haus is quiet without all the boys there making messes and noise and a home, that Mandy ends up thinking about it. She tries not to, really she tries—it’s depressing enough to regularly lose time because you’ve suddenly run out of ghost mojo or whatever and you have to disappear for a while—but there’s something about the kitchen and it’s curtains that makes her wonder if she would’ve chosen the same ugly pattern had she ever gotten the chance to.

She probably would’ve; Jenny loves them.

If Mandy lets herself, she can easily imagine what else she would’ve done had she had the chance. She thinks she would've graduated with a degree in one of the sciences. She hadn't declared anything yet before… well before, but her biology and chemistry classes had been her favourites, and her parents were pushing hard for pre-med. She can’t remember how she felt about being a doctor at the time, and now she has mixed feelings about it after seeing first hand how demanding a major like that can be. She thinks physio therapy would’ve been a good fit for her though.

Watching the curtains blow gently in the breeze from a window that wasn’t closed properly somewhere, Mandy wonders if she and Jenny would’ve figured themselves out before graduation, or if they would’ve danced around their feelings all four years until they graduated and became a distant memory to introduce to their new families at the 25-year reunion. Mandy wrinkles her nose; that’s an unpleasant thought. She couldn’t imagine spending the past like, 30 years with anyone other than Jenny.

Maybe then, they would have moved in together after walking the stage and finding jobs in the same city. There are athletes who can benefit from a good physical therapist everywhere and Mandy would’ve followed Jenny anywhere she wanted to teach. Mandy never saw Jenny with kids, but from the way Jenny talks about her younger siblings, Mandy thinks she was amazing with them. There’s no doubt in Mandy’s mind that Jenny would’ve had her choice of jobs to pick from.

So they’d rent out a two bedroom apartment that they probably couldn’t afford at first. But what’s a couple more months of getting help from your parents until you cash your first paycheck?

Mandy wishes she knew.

There’d be a fight about who would get the bigger bedroom probably. Mandy would win, but Jenny would pout so they’d compromise by sharing the bigger closet and Jenny would pick out the decorations that made the place _theirs_. The curtains she’d choose would be ugly as all hell, but she’d love them so Mandy wouldn’t say a bad word about them. If it was possible, the couch would match but Mandy would say a prayer that the carpet colour can’t be changed. They’d get unmatched dishes from a second hand store down the street, and they’d each have a favourite mug, bowl, and plate. Jenny’s days would start earlier, though they’d quickly learn that she’s a mess in the morning so Mandy would wake up early enough to make coffee for both of them. She’d spend the hour or so after Jenny left reading the paper her parents paid for as a you’re-a-grown-up-now gift. She’d look through the crossword, and fill out what she could but it would always be more fun to finish it with Jenny after dinner, when Jenny would make up words to fit the definitions.

“Cinnamons,” she’d call them, snorting with laughter every time Mandy would phonically try to sound out what Jenny wrote in her perfect teacher handwriting.

Mandy would be happy with her job at a small clinic down the road from the hockey rink. As the newbie in the office, she’d take on the newer clients, the teenagers who, between growing pains and the physicality of their sports, needed to see her for routines to strengthen the ligaments of their knees. They’d never do the stretching she sent them home with but she’d perfect her disappointed look early on from watching Jenny practice her’s, and word would spread that the strengthening routines during appointments would get harder if you didn’t stretch at home properly.

But work would still be work and sometimes you needed to unwind. Jenny, with her classroom of energetic eight year olds would understand completely and during the first long weekend of the school year, Mandy would make sure to request the same day off. They’d make sure that they had enough alcohol to keep up with an apartment full of their sorority sisters and the friends they’d make at work. Day drinking on a Saturday would be disguised as a late housewarming party, but that excuse wouldn’t feasibly carry over to the mimosas Jenny would serve at breakfast on the Sunday for those who stayed over.

The two day hangover Mandy would end up with, even after the grease that Jenny insisted she eat, would be a reminder that they’re not in college anymore. It wouldn’t taste as bittersweet as it could though; she’d be happy to have graduated with the memories and experiences, but she’d be realistic in understanding that some college friends aren’t lifelong friends. She’d probably be more upset about growing apart from her sisters if she didn’t expect to always have Jenny in her life.

That night would be when Mandy would let herself finally think about how she wants Jenny in her life. They’d be in the kitchen and Jenny would have on the reading glasses she insisted she didn’t need while she did last minute marking before the school week, hair piled on top of her head, and she’d somehow be the most beautiful creature Mandy had ever seen. The noodles Mandy would make for an easy dinner would boil over, she’d be so distracted watching the way Jenny scrunches her nose while she read, and while Jenny would laugh at Mandy jumping to get the pot off the heat, she’d still get up and help her clean the water on the stove.

In the morning, Jenny would be running later than usual and take her coffee cup to drink on her way to school, pressing a quick kiss to Mandy’s lips in thanks before she would literally run out the door. Mandy would spend the day thinking about it, going between wondering if a three day hangover made her imagine things and worrying that Jenny regretted that they ever moved in together because Mandy’s sexuality was apparently contagious.

Mandy wouldn’t stop worrying until she got home from work to find more candles and flowers that she’d left in the apartment when she’d left earlier.

“I meant to do that properly, like, with discussions about feelings or whatever,” Jenny would say, face flushed from the heat coming off the biggest casserole Mandy had ever seen. “But you just… You’re like, so good to me. And I don’t know if you like, know how much I appreciate what you already do for me and like, it might be selfish or whatever, but like, I want more. I want to wake up next to you, and I want to kiss you, and probably spend the rest of my life with you.” She’d shake her head, and laugh to herself. “I’m like, 80 percent sure I’m in love with you Mandy, and like, you should probably know that.”

Jenny, not one for making big speeches about herself, would finish with a shrug and Mandy wouldn’t be able to do anything but cross the kitchen and answer everything Jenny just admitted with a kiss, hoping that would be enough to convey her feelings.

They would share the bigger bedroom in the apartment, and kisses with coffee would become a part of their normal routine. They’d learn more about each other; that Jenny laughed when she orgasmed and that Mandy didn’t like to be cuddled while she slept, but couldn’t actually fall asleep without a forehead kiss as they rolled to their separate sides. It wouldn’t always be easy—they’d fight about whose turn it was to do the dishes or plan their dates—but being together would always feel right.

Upgrading from an apartment to a house would be a natural progression when they would have the means to do so. There wouldn’t be a fight over the bigger bedroom, but somehow Jenny would still get to pick out the curtains, insisting that the ones from the apartment match the new paint colour that they choose for the kitchen and after seeing how happy the curtains made Jenny in the apartment, Mandy would find that she didn’t have a good argument against them.

Their parents would stop making comments about it being strange for two women to live together as roommates past their early 20’s when Mandy and Jenny make the trip to Canada to exchange vows, and they’d cry through the vows again in 2015, this time with both their parents and children watching.

They would have had such a good life together, Mandy thinks.

The curtains in the Haus have stopped moving and suddenly it’s taking all of her energy to concentrate on the pattern. She closes her eyes and goes through the motions of breathing deeply; a technique she’s borrowed from watching the boys in the Haus.

It does nothing to ground her and between one faked breath and the next, she’s gone.

**Author's Note:**

> My [tumblr](http://pongpalace.tumblr.com) if you wanna come hang out :)


End file.
